Emerg Infect DisEIDEmerging Infectious Diseases1080-60401080-6059Centers for Disease Control and Prevention285153507-999910.3201/eid0710.079999Another DimensionBurning the RatZolynasAl102007131016211621I find him lying by the door,legs outstretched as if he died in mid-leap.I pick him up by the tail.He feels loose, beyond the first stiffness of death.His molecules have realized the futility of hanging on;they know the party's over, it's time to head home.Suddenly, I want to burn this rat.I surprise myself at how much I want this.I want to save him from the slowdecay, the fetid rearrangementof his parts --or so I tell myself.But mostly, I want to see him burn.I drop him on the wire screenthat covers the forty-gallon drumI use for burning garbage.I light the fire.I am strangely satisfied.As I expected, his whiskers furlinto quick question marks and are gone;his fur bubbles, then turns black and dry.The tail, the long nightmare of a tail,holds on longer than I thought.Hours later, it is the only thing left,a white length of ashlike the backbone of something prehistoricseen from a great distance.
Copyright Al Zolynas. Originally published in THE NEW PHYSICS, Wesleyan University Press, 1979.